At the end of the day, Antichrist is just another film… Even if I hated Antichrist with a passion, maybe I’d have to push that aside and just concentrate on what I was impressed by – Anthony Dod Mantle’s beautiful cinematography, the sound design, Willem Dafoe’s underrated performance – and if I loved it with a passion, well, vice versa. I won’t be running out to buy Salo tomorrow, but I think I can take on something else now. This is all about an art form showing me what my limits are, acceptable or as unacceptable as they may be to others. So that’s what I’ve taken from Antichrist: what does film say about me? This is more an egotrip than a review, but really, I can’t think too long about what I think about the film right now.
Maybe I’m not shocked by the genital stuff because I’ve seen pornography before? Would a regular twentysomething feel the same that I did? (I asked my friends and, eh, apparently not quite.) Maybe my true feelings for the film will come to me a day, a week, maybe a year from now. But even within these scenes, there are superb touches that allow He and She’s (the characters are never named) relationship to feel truthful, and despite the abandonment of reality as the film goes on, the psychological torment the couple wreak on each other – intentionally or otherwise – can occasionally be as chilling as any mano-o-mano.ĭoes it say something about me that a self-professed scaredy cat can watch a film as notorious as this one and not even have a strong reaction to it? Maybe I’m von Trier’s worst enemy, a critic who adopts the diplomatic stance to something controversial. It doesn’t help that Dafoe’s character is a therapist, with much of his dialogue being in – ugh – therapy chatter, which doesn’t make for thrilling cinema. Not that these chamber dramas cannot be interesting, but Dafoe and Gainsbourg talk in stilted tones of how much pain they’re in, how life is meaningless, and how “nature is Satan’s church”.
The film is an odd mash-up of grave relationship drama and torture-tastic brainy horror, and it’s a surprise watching the film as to just how much of it is, well, boring relationship drama.
All I’m going to say is you may want to cancel any DIY plans in the near future. And that’s not all you see – as you’ve probably read following the shitstorm the press got wound up into, we also meet a deer foetus hanging out of it’s mother’s backside, a graphic burning, full-on “insertion” during a sex scene (shot in glorious slo-mo), subliminal imagery hidden in shots of trees and, well, those already famous mutilations involving the main characters. A highly controversial one, but just another film.Īntichrist follows a married couple (played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, winner of Best Actress at Cannes) retreating to a cabin in the woods following the tragic death of their child, which we see in the prologue. Maybe the public will take to it far differently than I will – maybe they’ll embrace it or slate it? In my opinion, Antichrist is not the great divider I thought it would be… for better or worse, it’s just another film. Lars von Trier’s notorious Antichrist has been the subject of heavy debate since its unveiling at Cannes, and it will screen uncut in Edinburgh on Wednesday night. For the first time at this festival, I’m absolutely scunnered on what to say about a film.
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